I was bored, so I ran a Japanese fan site through a translator. They cite sources from some of the official addon books, so apparently this is all canon. These are the highlights.

Those shoulder pads the mages wear have magical focusing crystals in them that help them cast spells. That's why every magic user has the mondo-shiny shoulder pads.

Bustoke is a parliamentary democracy, with the King and Queen acting mostly as observers.

Diane and Zylo waged a guerilla war against Runefaust in the wilderness around Bustoke, shooting down 3 squadrons (54 Pegasus Knights) before Runefaust had enough and pulled their poison act.

One of Guardiana's centaur knights kept coming on to Tao until she finally set him on fire with a spell. Despite this, she is very polite and often quiet. She's also popular in the castle.

Mae was racist against humans, considering them to be 'an inferior people', but changed her mind due to Max over the course of the game.

Magical creatures like Domingo used to be widely created and sold by Manarina as magical 'watchdogs', but the difficulty in getting the eggs to hatch right caused the market to tank and the creation to be abandoned.

Earnest has royal blood, his country 'Thermal' was destroyed by Balbazak during his campaign. Thermal was a tiny nation bordering Runefaust that got overrun early on.

Ernest thermal homeland is a small country located in the forest area of ​​northeast rune Faust. By order of the Dakusoru, was destroyed in an attack a year ago of troops under Barubazaku beast. Prior to invade the gar Diana, destroy the neighboring small country in this way, he tried to rune Faust arms extended. Thermal is a country that was its first victim.

Most mages specialize in one form of attack magic because it is easier to control.

This tidbit about dragons.

Creature called <Dragon> are living many rune continents. And blue dragon that appeared as an enemy, but does not appear in the game, Red Dragon who lives in underground magma, Hydra with a neck for example, a multi-Dragon for small riding knights ride very rare. Dragon God is the presence of the absolute strongest position to its pinnacle.

After the final battle, Hanzou and Mushashi had a duel. No one knows who won.

'Nova' is both a name and a title given to the Chief of Staff of the military in Guardiana.

And yet again, it confirms that Dark Dragon was a biological weapon made by the Ancients that went out of control.

You know, if they had taken all these details and worked them into RotDD, I think it would've been a lot more successful. It's apparent there was a lot of detail put into the Shining Force world, but so little of it pops up in the game. It's all in artbooks and add-on materials. What a friggin' shame.

TheUnknownMarine wrote:1) Diane and Zylo waged a guerilla war against Runefaust in the wilderness around Bustoke, shooting down 3 squadrons (54 Pegasus Knights) before Runefaust had enough and pulled their poison act.

2) One of Guardiana's centaur knights kept coming on to Tao until she finally set him on fire with a spell. Despite this, she is very polite and often quiet. She's also popular in the castle.

3) Earnest has royal blood, his country 'Thermal' was destroyed by Balbazak during his campaign. Thermal was a tiny nation bordering Runefaust that got overrun early on.

4) After the final battle, Hanzou and Mushashi had a duel. No one knows who won.

I am only a few years late on reading this stuff, but this is amazing stuff in here. Thank you everyone that worked on this and commented. I got to thinking the other day that small fan made mini games would be fun. They could tell backstory of characters and maybe only be an hour or so in length to play.

EDIT: Can someone repost the high quality image of Lowe and Max? Old link no longer works.

They really could have given a lot of depth to many characters. Especially ones that seem to join the force because they have nothing better to do. Arthur is one that I was impressed by his back story and he was one of my favorites anyways.

I just spent the last two hours reading the entire topic. Beautiful, just Beautiful. Im new in this comunity and i know that its very late to coment here, but i need to tell you all that im very happy to see so much people giving love and dedication to the shining series. An extra huge "thank you" to every translator who worked on this, it's like now i have so much more to love from the original shining force series, just thank you. I just have one question, why Ernest, Alef, Torasu, Adam, Bleu, Hanzou, Musashi and Domingo didnt appeared in the book?. (I am from Argentina and all what i learned about english was from the school, so sorry if i misspell).

I agree with Poteito, new to the forums. But I was playing SF when I was so young I had to pester my parents to read the actual game to me. Which brings me to my love of Domingo, perhaps my favorite rpg character of all time, I want to learn more about him/her/it so if anyone knows more about that I'd love to hear it. Ever since I was young I've always dreamed of playing Shining Force Domingo! Though maybe that's just me. Once again thanks, and great job illuminating me on my favorite game I apparently didn't really understand. SFD for life.